This is an­oth­er bla­tant ex­am­ple of the in­con­sis­ten­cies, con­tra­dic­tions and ob­fus­cat­ed in­for­ma­tion dis­sem­i­na­tion com­ing from this new­ly mint­ed gov­ern­ment. The ob­fus­ca­tion is born out of show­boat­ing by the Prime Min­is­ter.?The ear­li­er in­sis­tence of meet­ing at the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er's of­fice serves the pur­pose for il­lus­tra­tion. We are aware that this is a new gov­ern­ment and the task of gov­er­nance is in­deed for­mi­da­ble but con­tra­dic­tions both in pro­nounce­ments and ac­tions are fast be­com­ing a po­lit­i­cal prax­is. The Gov­ern­ment has hired some high-pow­ered pub­lic re­la­tions peo­ple at high salaries who seem to be do­ing more dam­age than good by turn­ing a cold cal­cu­lus on na­tion­al in­ter­est.

The ini­tial emol­lience of the Prime Min­is­ter's has been fad­ing but quick­ly in the light of re­cent grand­stand­ing for pub­lic com­fort. The grow­ing in­scrutabil­i­ty of re­cent pro­nounce­ments seems to lend val­i­da­tion and cred­i­bil­i­ty to the Alan Greenspan cre­do: "I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be par­tic­u­lar­ly clear, you prob­a­bly mis­un­der­stood what I said."

The es­o­teric lan­guage of the Gov­ern­ment, be­sides be­ing un­palat­able and in­di­gestible, is cre­at­ing a dan­ger­ous en­nui.

Robert R Mit­too

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